Yes, you really do plug this large thing in from a dangling HDMI cable. You'll also need a power cord, which is not shown here.

This is the only picture of the power cord I could find.

Amazon has a big hardware launch party today, and on the TV-side of things, the company is launching a new Fire TV. It's $69/£70, has a new form factor, and has 60FPS 4K HDR support.

4K HDR is a big deal for Amazon since the company is actually producing 4K HDR content. Before today, it wasn't possible to use Amazon hardware to watch Amazon shows like The Grand Tour in their full HDR glory. Now, Amazon finally has a comprehensive HDR hardware and content solution it can pitch to customers.

Further Reading

The form factor of the new Fire TV is different from its predecessor. The previous Fire TV was a set-top box designed to sit on a piece of furniture like a cable box. This new Fire TV looks a lot like a square version of a Chromecast—a box of electronics hangs off the back of the TV via a super-short HDMI cable. This works much better for clean wall-mount installations, a favorite setup of cord cutters.

The new Fire TV also comes with an Alexa voice remote. Besides handling the remote control duties, it also has a microphone, giving users access to Alexa voice commands and skills.

Under the hood there's a Amlogic 1.5GHz SoC with four Cortex A53 cores, a Mali450 MP3 GPU, 2GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, an 802.11ac Wi-Fi connection, and Dolby Atmos support. And, of course, since it's a Fire device, under the hood it runs an Amazon-built fork of Android with all the usual apps and games from Amazon's Fire TV app store. The only port is a rear Micro-USB port, which Amazon's spec sheet notes is used "for power only."

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Ron Amadeo
Ron is the Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he specializes in Android OS and Google products. He is always on the hunt for a new gadget and loves to rip things apart to see how they work. Emailron@arstechnica.com//Twitter@RonAmadeo

I am losing track ... do each "TV box" (Fire TV, Chromecast, Apple TV, Roku etc.) play something that only they can play (so you have to get all of them if you want to play everything), or is there one box to play them all?

(I have an old Apple TV and Chromecast. If/when I upgrade to a 4K HDR soon, I am confused as to what I should get.)

Supporting Amazon's 4K content is great, but what about Netflix and YouTube? These days, I'm finding that you're lucky to get a single device that supports everything and is user friendly. (The latter mostly deals with speed. You'd be surprised at how slow some of these devices feel to use.) I've seen users on the AVS Forums suggesting the Nvidia Shield TV because it's peppy and supports all digital 4K content, but it's also quite pricey at $200-300.

Pro Tip: If relaxing watching a movie on your fire TV (or Fire stick, same remote) and you happen to drop your remote into a stiff mixed drink, and said remote no longer works even after a vigorous rubbing on one's slacks, there is a Fire TV remote app for smartphones that works fairly well. Free is much cheaper than buying a replacement remote and delivery is much quicker too.

I am losing track ... do each "TV box" (Fire TV, Chromecast, Apple TV, Roku etc.) play something that only they can play (so you have to get all of them if you want to play everything), or is there one box to play them all?

(I have an old Apple TV and Chromecast. If/when I upgrade to a 4K HDR soon, I am confused as to what I should get.)

One box to rule them all would be Apple TV (none of the others have access to iTunes), Amazon is bringing back the Prime Video app to tvOS. Ironic that Apple’s “walled garden” also provides the most streamlined media experience now.

Supporting Amazon's 4K content is great, but what about Netflix and YouTube? These days, I'm finding that you're lucky to get a single device that supports everything and is user friendly. (The latter mostly deals with speed. You'd be surprised at how slow some of these devices feel to use.) I've seen users on the AVS Forums suggesting the Nvidia Shield TV because it's peppy and supports all digital 4K content, but it's also quite pricey at $200-300.

The FireTV 2 supports Netflix and YouTube 4k content so I don't see why this wouldn't. The FireTV 2 did default to 1080p60 for applications because it could only do 2160p30 so the menus were faster and smoother in 1080 mode but an update last May allowed application developers to choose 2160 if they want. The FireTV 2 is plenty fast for everything I've done with it including Kodi playback.

I am losing track ... do each "TV box" (Fire TV, Chromecast, Apple TV, Roku etc.) play something that only they can play (so you have to get all of them if you want to play everything), or is there one box to play them all?

(I have an old Apple TV and Chromecast. If/when I upgrade to a 4K HDR soon, I am confused as to what I should get.)

Pro Tip: If relaxing watching a movie on your fire TV (or Fire stick, same remote) and you happen to drop your remote into a stiff mixed drink, and said remote no longer works even after a vigorous rubbing on one's slacks, there is a Fire TV remote app for smartphones that works fairly well. Free is much cheaper than buying a replacement remote and delivery is much quicker too.

Plus, I always have my phone on me, I can't always find the FireTV remote (damn kids). However, what I use most frequently is the TV remote, the FireTV does HDMI-CEC so my TV remote works just fine for navigating and play/pause/rewind/etc plus it controls the volume of the receiver. I really wish the Roku had CEC support as I love the Roku feature where you can stream the audio to the app and listen via headphones, great for not disturbing others in the house, but no CEC makes it a little more painful to use overall because it doesn't work with the TV remote when I want to use that and it doesn't power up the TV if I use its remote like the FireTV does. Basically with the FireTV I can wake the box, tv, and receiver up no matter which remote I happen to have (box, tv, or app on the phone) but with the Roku I have to have the TV remote AND the Roku remote or app.

Maybe I'm in the minority but I don't like sticks and I especially don't like hanging sticks. I'd much rather have a tiny box with a proper ethernet port. Thankfully, I'm currently set with my streaming boxes since I have a Nexus Player (running Oreo), a FireTV (2016 version I think), and a ShieldTV (2017 version).

So is this one device replacing both the FireTV and the FireTV Stick? Honestly I prefer the original FireTV design with it's ethernet port and fiber optic audio port.

As do I. My wife has wanted to upgrade to the new 4K Apple TV but I have been resisting because of the price and I wanted to wait to see what Amazon cooked up. Not going to upgrade for a few months so guess there is time for device reviews to come in for the new box before we make our final decision.

That thing looks like a port breaker. Also, is Apple the only one interested in future proofing their devices? The hardware specs on most streaming boxes are pathetic. I can imagine a near-future scenario where these become stuttery garbage because they are so underpowered.

Boom, immediately sold, if there is going to be more content available to stream with Atmos encoding (particularly from Amazon). Would kind of like that answered. Most Amazon video is only in 5.1. Vudu only does Atmos with their UHD streaming video, and it's priced the same as buying a 4k disc. Etc.

Oh, from looking at the site, you can add an Echo Dot as a bundle for just another $10. That's… tempting too.

Are people really setting up Atmos setups with height channels and everything? Atmos is really cool in commercial venues, but the at-home version is super cutdown and lame. It just mashes the object channels together with some added panning metadata. Sort of like old school matrix encoding but not quite as bad. And I bet streaming services are just using the new version that appends Atmos metadata to Dolby Digital Plus streams. It's still a depressingly low bitrate, it's just Atmos in name only.

Do these mode switch to always display content as it came, or did it make the choice of the Apple TV to avoid that flicker by stretching things into other colour spaces and resolutions (sometimes to ill effect - see nilay's review)?

Won’t this physically stress the HDMI port? Hope they bundle a $0.25 Velcro tape to fix the “dox” (dongle-box) to the back of the TV.

I also hope they bundle an HDMI port extender so we can route it to the top of the TV (better WiFi reception) than being forced to keep it behind a giant slab of glass, metal and electronics (weaker WiFi).

That thing looks like a port breaker. Also, is Apple the only one interested in future proofing their devices? The hardware specs on most streaming boxes are pathetic. I can imagine a near-future scenario where these become stuttery garbage because they are so underpowered.

Decoding is all done by dedicated silicon so the CPU overhead is very low. That’s why “underpowered” ARM boxes were often able to play h.265 content that a lot of much more powerful PCs would struggle to cope with because the latter were limited to software decoding where the CPU does all the work.

Thankfully modern processors and GPU include similar decoding circuitry so you can play high res video files on a laptop without dramatically reducing battery life.

That thing looks like a port breaker. Also, is Apple the only one interested in future proofing their devices? The hardware specs on most streaming boxes are pathetic. I can imagine a near-future scenario where these become stuttery garbage because they are so underpowered.

Video decoding hardware will continue to decode video at the rate required; software will be forthcoming for as long as it makes economic sense, but even then existing back ends seem to stay switched on for a while. I guess the proliferation of "Smart" TVs imbues a conservative approach. So I think that any successful platform will remain a decent experience at least until the version you bought has fallen far behind the pack.

My reasoning? Netflix and Hulu remain completely usable on my iOS 5 toting iPad 1. As long as I don't want subtitles in Hulu, that is. They appear to have introduced a breaking change to those compared to whatever they were doing five or so years ago within the last few months. But I'd much rather use the iOS 5 version of Hulu than the new Fire OS you-are-the-product redesign* so it's actually better than my slightly creaky Fire Stick.

* as in: "recommendations" (all content Hulu owns, quelle surprise) are now significantly more prominent than whatever you've actually got a history of watching or a stated desire to watch.

The only port is a rear Micro-USB port, which, if the other Fire TVs are any indication, can be used for hooking up external storage and using the Android debugging tools for development.

What are the odds this is simply the power connector, like Chromecast? I suppose it could be storage, debug, and power... but it does need power right? It's not using HDMI power?

Per HDMI.org"The HDMI specification requires all source devices to provide at least 55mA (milliamps) on the 5V line for the purpose of reading the EDID of a display. While 55mA is not enough current to operate most HDMI accessory devices (which typically require about 100 to 150mA), most source devices on the market today provide significantly more current on the 5V line than the HDMI specification requires."

I suspect that there are a number of devices where HDMI power would be enough(indeed, the cheap seats probably shave an extra cent off the BoM by not implementing any protection whatsoever between the system's main +5v and its HDMI power...); but the amount actually required by the spec is far too low to make a safe assumption about powering much of anything; so releasing a product that assumes ample HDMI power will be available would really be rolling the dice in terms of confused customers and product returns. I'd be surprised if Amazon is foolish enough to try that.

Pro Tip: If relaxing watching a movie on your fire TV (or Fire stick, same remote) and you happen to drop your remote into a stiff mixed drink, and said remote no longer works even after a vigorous rubbing on one's slacks, there is a Fire TV remote app for smartphones that works fairly well. Free is much cheaper than buying a replacement remote and delivery is much quicker too.

Apple has a similar deal with their Remote app. Quite useful if you find yourself trapped on the couch underneath a toddler who wants to watch "Bunnies" (Zootopia) on Netflix, but the Siri Remote is out of reach. If you attempt to get up you are playing with fire...

The only port is a rear Micro-USB port, which, if the other Fire TVs are any indication, can be used for hooking up external storage and using the Android debugging tools for development.

What are the odds this is simply the power connector, like Chromecast? I suppose it could be storage, debug, and power... but it does need power right? It's not using HDMI power?

Per HDMI.org"The HDMI specification requires all source devices to provide at least 55mA (milliamps) on the 5V line for the purpose of reading the EDID of a display. While 55mA is not enough current to operate most HDMI accessory devices (which typically require about 100 to 150mA), most source devices on the market today provide significantly more current on the 5V line than the HDMI specification requires."

I suspect that there are a number of devices where HDMI power would be enough(indeed, the cheap seats probably shave an extra cent off the BoM by not implementing any protection whatsoever between the system's main +5v and its HDMI power...); but the amount actually required by the spec is far too low to make a safe assumption about powering much of anything; so releasing a product that assumes ample HDMI power will be available would really be rolling the dice in terms of confused customers and product returns. I'd be surprised if Amazon is foolish enough to try that.

Thanks for the spec, I’ve never consulted it but several have brought up devices potentially being powered by HDMI in the past, i.e chromecast.

More critically, it seems the streaming device has to *provide* the power to the display, not the other way around. When it talks about HDMI accessory I assume it means things like HDMI switches or splitters that might reside in between. Of course, I haven’t sifted through the whole spec so perhaps there’s still something where some pins can provide power, and the source still has to turn around and provide 55mA for reading EDID to meet this part of the spec. Edit: looks like pin18 is the only power pin in the spec, unless there are “alternate modes” I’m not seeing.

All of this is a tangent though to my original point that I thought it strange Ron didn’t consider that it was a power port.

Pro Tip: If relaxing watching a movie on your fire TV (or Fire stick, same remote) and you happen to drop your remote into a stiff mixed drink, and said remote no longer works even after a vigorous rubbing on one's slacks, there is a Fire TV remote app for smartphones that works fairly well. Free is much cheaper than buying a replacement remote and delivery is much quicker too.

However, what I use most frequently is the TV remote, the FireTV does HDMI-CEC so my TV remote works just fine for navigating and play/pause/rewind/etc plus it controls the volume of the receiver. I really wish the Roku had CEC support as I love the Roku feature where you can stream the audio to the app and listen via headphones, great for not disturbing others in the house, but no CEC makes it a little more painful to use overall because it doesn't work with the TV remote when I want to use that and it doesn't power up the TV if I use its remote like the FireTV does. Basically with the FireTV I can wake the box, tv, and receiver up no matter which remote I happen to have (box, tv, or app on the phone) but with the Roku I have to have the TV remote AND the Roku remote or app.

Roku Premiere+ supports CEC. At least for powering on the TV when you press any button on the remote, and for controlling the volume of the TV using the volume buttons on the remote when no headphones are plugged in. Was quite handy to use ... until I mucked around in the TV settings and somehow turned off CEC support, and I haven't been able to make it work since.

There's also a universal remote add-on that the Roku remotes clip into that let's you control anything with an IR receiver, although you then lose access to the headphone jack.

That thing looks like a port breaker. Also, is Apple the only one interested in future proofing their devices? The hardware specs on most streaming boxes are pathetic. I can imagine a near-future scenario where these become stuttery garbage because they are so underpowered.

Since it is a nice flat square, I figure you can probably take a lot of strain off the HDMI port by applying some double-stick tape to mount it more securely to the back of your TV.

Pro Tip: If relaxing watching a movie on your fire TV (or Fire stick, same remote) and you happen to drop your remote into a stiff mixed drink, and said remote no longer works even after a vigorous rubbing on one's slacks, there is a Fire TV remote app for smartphones that works fairly well. Free is much cheaper than buying a replacement remote and delivery is much quicker too.

However, what I use most frequently is the TV remote, the FireTV does HDMI-CEC so my TV remote works just fine for navigating and play/pause/rewind/etc plus it controls the volume of the receiver. I really wish the Roku had CEC support as I love the Roku feature where you can stream the audio to the app and listen via headphones, great for not disturbing others in the house, but no CEC makes it a little more painful to use overall because it doesn't work with the TV remote when I want to use that and it doesn't power up the TV if I use its remote like the FireTV does. Basically with the FireTV I can wake the box, tv, and receiver up no matter which remote I happen to have (box, tv, or app on the phone) but with the Roku I have to have the TV remote AND the Roku remote or app.

Roku Premiere+ supports CEC. At least for powering on the TV when you press any button on the remote, and for controlling the volume of the TV using the volume buttons on the remote when no headphones are plugged in. Was quite handy to use ... until I mucked around in the TV settings and somehow turned off CEC support, and I haven't been able to make it work since.

There's also a universal remote add-on that the Roku remotes clip into that let's you control anything with an IR receiver, although you then lose access to the headphone jack.

Very cool, when I got my stick last year none of the models supported it, good to know it's available if I decide to upgrade, though my latest TV was a Roku one for the trailer so I have all of my current screens covered =)

Maybe I'm in the minority but I don't like sticks and I especially don't like hanging sticks. I'd much rather have a tiny box with a proper ethernet port. Thankfully, I'm currently set with my streaming boxes since I have a Nexus Player (running Oreo), a FireTV (2016 version I think), and a ShieldTV (2017 version).

I here what you are saying and felt the same way. For video I liked hard wired ethernet connections. Last year my wife was bedridden for a couple of weeks and I wanted to add streaming to our master bedroom TV. I did not have any time to plan ahead. I had previously dragged ethernet into LR, den and office but the Master BR was not wired. I have 100 Mbps fiber to the home with solid wifi coverage throughout my home. I needed a quick solution.

I purchased a Firestick, it was cheap, and set up was a snap. The Firestick streams (not 4k) Netflix, Prime, uTube, and Plex well beyond my expectations. I have great wifi coverage and for the price it is pretty slick. The Android remote and voice control work well. It was less than $40, ac WiFi, but no ethernet. Now that my wife is up and about the Firestick is connected to the TV on our screened in porch.

I'm sure the higher ended boxes would work even better but I have been surprised at how well the Fire Stick works.